The biggest test for racehorse and jockey awaits the runners of the world’s most famous horse race – the John Smith’s Grand National – live for the first time ever on Channel 4.

Known as the ‘People’s Race’, it captures the hearts and the imagination of inveterate racing fans and once-a-year viewers alike.

At four-and-a-half miles it is a marathon horse race in the extreme, severely testing the partnership between jockey and horse as they strive to clear 30 fences and negotiate two circuits of the famous Aintree course on their way to sporting immortality.

Channel 4 will broadcast the 2013 edition of the nation’s favourite horse race live on Saturday, April 6, as well as extensive coverage of all three days of the Aintree meeting (April 4-6), plus a range of support programming building up to the world’s most iconic horse race.